'Solomon Kane' review: Harlots, varlets and grade-C cheese

(RADIUS/TWC)James Purefoy is a party-crashing warrior in "Solomon Kane"

It was a time of ignorance and zealotry, of empty thrones and vacant words, when the best men were useless mumblers, the worst yielded power like a blunt club and those who could bear to watch the sad show at all fell into mirthless mockery.

But enough about this year's political campaigns.

Instead, let us turn our eyes to 1601, when the once-proud land of King Arthur and Chaucer and words with a cute extra "u" in them came under the spell of an immortal and amoral monster.

And no, it was not Madonna, but an even more eldritch sorcerer, and this spawn of Satan turned the skies to grey slate and the people to shuffling ragged slaves, until it all looked like Seattle at rush hour, but with worse coffee.

Until arose from the people a champion, named Solomon Kane.

And his sword was broad, and his shoulders were broader, and he rode into battle to lay waste to this villain. But he found few allies along the way, and many troubles, and even more CGI, with monsters made of magic and software and blurry pixels.

And it was not good.

Nor was the picture show that contained it, an entertainment which was finished three fair summers ago, and had since languished in the dungeons of Castle Weinstein, next to worm-eaten volumes of forgotten lore, and the bodies of interns who had screwed up Harvey's Starbucks order.

But then, like some gibbering demon from hell, this monstrous thing did escape.

And with it came another kind of numbing horror. For James Purefoy, who plays this Kane, is so dully sane and earnest he makes one wish for that mad jester, the Nic of Cage. And the young Rachel Hurd-Wood, who plays his love, looks like a mere child beside him, or as they are called in Hollywood, a second wife.

There is magic among these players, to be sure. But only in that they include Pete Postlethwaite, now dead for more than a year and a half, as a pilgrim seeking a distant shore. Alas, he found it, poor soul, but not before he had slogged through the mud of this dull labor.

And tis a shame, for the tale itself comes from the stories of Robert E. Howard, who created this hero, and Conan too, for magazines with pages of pulp and mystery. But there is no mystery here, unless it be why Max Von Sydow would agree to a guest spot.

Instead it's just muck and mess and murder. Everyone's teeth, save our hero's, look like splintered picket fences. Few characters have much to do but grunt and scream and bleed. There's no magic, or even gratuitous nudity. And at the end, Solomon even threatens a sequel.

But some abominations are beyond even the spells of sorcery.

Ratings note: The film contains much bloody pillaging.

'Solomon Kane' (R) Radius-TWC (104 min.)
Directed by Michael J. Bassett. With James Purefoy, Pete Postlethwaite, Rachel Hurd-Wood. Now playing in New York.
ONE AND A HALF STARS HERE